Source of Light
by LadyDunla
Summary: A plot to overthrow the Statute of Secrecy forces MI-5 and their magical counterparts to set aside their prejudices and work together. But it is not all that simple, and for some officers this operation is intensely personal. Sequel to Operation Wandless.
1. Prologue

**Hello, dear readers! If you've read Operation Wandless, welcome back. If you didn't, the most important thing you have to know that two aspiring Aurors made a career switch three years prior to this story, and are now working with MI-5. **

**Enjoy!**

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**Prologue**

There was nothing at all unusual about the small restaurant in the heart of London. It was lunchtime and therefore it was crowded. The young woman in a crisp business suit was hardly remarkable in the crowds of people making their way through the City. That was just the way she liked it. She had no ambition to stand out in a crowd at all.

But she wished they would just get out of her way, because she was running late and she only had an hour before she needed to be back at work, or her boss would have her hide. And since his temper had been close to explosion for weeks, the woman had no wish to get her ears blistered when she got on his bad side, especially when that was so easily achieved these days.

She pushed the door open and came into the restaurant itself. It was warmer in here than it was outside and she sighed contently. Everything was better than the chilly air that had been plaguing London for the last week.

'Excuse me,' she called to a waiter. 'I wondered if you could help me? I'm supposed to meet a friend here.'

The waiter met that with the cool polite expression that seemed to be his kind's default setting. 'Do you have his name?' If he was trying to convey the message of you're-the-umpteenth-difficult-customer-I've-seen-today, then he was doing a tremendous job of it.

The woman ignored that. 'Harris,' she told him. 'John Harris. My name is Eliza McKenzie. I was supposed to meet him here ten minutes ago, but I was late and now I'm not sure where he is, so I'm hoping…'

The waiter cut her rambling short. It was clear that he didn't have the patience for it in his current mood. 'Table twelve,' he reported. 'I'll take you there, Miss…' He caught sight of her wedding ring and corrected himself. 'Mrs McKenzie.'

The woman who had introduced herself as Eliza McKenzie shot him a relieved smile. 'Thank you,' she said. Unlike most of the customers, she genuinely seemed to mean it.

The waiter brought her to a table where a young man was waiting. He seemed very ill at ease; he gave every impression of sitting on a hedgehog instead of a comfortable chair and, to the other guests of the restaurant, he was looking a little strange. At first glance there was nothing at all wrong with him, but once one started to look at him longer, one couldn't help but wonder if that was a woman's shirt he was wearing underneath that jacket of his. And really, his coat was perhaps a bit overdone. But well, one saw all kinds of people on the streets today, so they did not spare him too much thought.

'John, good to see you!' Eliza McKenzie exclaimed when she caught sight of him, causing the waiter to inwardly cringe at the volume that caused the people around them to look disapprovingly.

The man seemed to relax somewhat when he in turn recognised her. 'Eliza, it's good to see you.' He met her with an affectionate hug. 'I'm glad you could make it on such a short notice.'

She smiled. 'No problem,' she assured him. 'But I can't stay long. My boss will kill me if I'm not back at my desk at one pm.' She turned to the waiter. 'Can we order right away?'

The waiter told her that she could, even though he really had other customers he should see to first. That last sentiment he kept to himself though and he left with their orders, wondering why today of all days he would be bothered with so many obnoxious customers.

Having said that though he wouldn't think there was anything at all strange about them. They were just two friends meeting up for lunch, as so many people did. They hardly stood out, even if the man's dress sense was a tad bit strange. And there was nothing at all unusual about them when he brought them their meals. They seemed to be discussing the good old days when the man had driven one of his teachers to despair by predicting the questions that teacher was going to ask.

Had he stayed for longer though, he may not have found them that ordinary at all.

'Poor man,' the woman commented when the man finished his story. 'I do feel sorry for him.'

'You never liked him either,' the man pointed out as he took an enthusiastic bite of salad. 'Neither did the rest of the student body.' He sipped his wine. 'I heard you got married?'

Given the wedding ring on her finger, that was hardly a difficult deduction. 'I did,' she confirmed. 'Although I'm surprised you heard about it. It was just a small celebration. We didn't make much of a fuss.'

Her lunch partner laughed humourlessly. 'Your charming father-in-law made quite a fuss about it at the Ministry,' he informed her. 'He would have forbidden it if only he could.'

She grimaced. 'I bet. Julius told me he was being "difficult," but I wasn't aware it was that bad.' She saw his confused look and added: 'There's not a lot of contact between them these days. Trust me, you don't want to know.' She swallowed a bite of her own. 'But enough about me. Why am I here?'

The nervousness that had subsided in the man now made a spectacular return and he glanced over his shoulder as if he were afraid that someone would either listen in or attack him the moment he opened his mouth. 'Can we talk here? Safely?'

The woman frowned. 'I think so.'

'Are you sure?' he insisted.

He got a shrug in response. 'There are ways of making sure.'

If the other guests of the restaurant would have looked at them a second later, they might have choked on their food, because the woman retrieved a wooden stick from her handbag and made a few discreet moves with it. Furthermore they would have realised that they could no longer hear what was being discussed at table twelve. But since no one was paying attention to that at all, the act of magic went completely unnoticed.

'Now, what is going on?' The tone of voice suddenly was rather business-like. 'Why are we here, with false names, in a Muggle restaurant, not to mention the fact that you sent me a magical note on my desk this morning. What's going on?' There was wariness and a touch of nervousness in her voice now too.

The man stared at his plate. 'I'd hardly know where to start.'

'The beginning?' the woman suggested.

'There's a movement in our world,' he suddenly said. He was still looking at his food instead of her. 'They call themselves the Source of Light.'

She frowned. 'I've never heard of them.'

'That's because it's a secret movement.' The man grimaced.

The frown on her face deepened. 'What are their goals?' It was clear that she had a lot of questions and was trying to determine which one was the most important.

'The short version? To overthrow the Statute of Secrecy and take over the Muggle world.' He sounded utterly miserable.

The witch almost choked on her drink. 'What?'

That seemed to do the trick of starting off an explanation. 'It's clever,' he said. 'Really clever. And it's already started. The idea is that they show magic to as much Muggles as they can without alerting the Ministry, until there are so many that it will be impossible to Obliviate them all. They think that if that happens, the Ministry will have no choice but to let them get away with it. They are hoping that the Ministry might even repeal the Statute of Secrecy of their own volition. And after that, they will try to take over the Muggle government by the Muggle ways. Getting into Parliament and all that. Their reasoning is that Muggles will be so impressed by the superiority of the wizards with their magic, that they will see the wisdom of letting them rule Britain. And if that doesn't work, there's always bribes, blackmail and brute force. As a last resort, of course, but still.'

All the colour had drained from his friend's face. 'Surely that cannot happen!' she exclaimed, a little too loud, but none of that really mattered because her own spell prevented others from hearing her outburst. Still, she lowered her voice when she realised her mistake. 'Surely the Ministry would not allow that to happen? Surely the magical population themselves would not want it?'

The wizard shook his head. 'You've been away for too long. Aren't you still subscribed to the _Daily Prophet_?'

The witch's stare was suddenly rather icy. 'I stopped reading that waste of ink three years ago. I think my boss still reads it though. Why? What does that have to do with this plot?'

By way of a reply he pushed the newspaper at her. 'Read that.'

She did. _Why the Statute of Secrecy Should Be Abandoned_, read the headline. She looked up in shock. 'This has got to be some kind of joke!'

'If only,' was the wry answer to that. 'Read on.'

She did, skimming the article more than reading it. Not that she needed more. The article stated that there were no longer witch hunts in the Muggle worlds and that meant that there was no real danger anymore, which had been the reason for going into hiding in the first place. According to the author this meant that wizards and Muggles should be able to live in one society again, with one government. Already there were good examples of cooperation between the two worlds, like the joined operation of the Auror Department and the Muggle security service MI-5 three years ago. Wasn't that all the proof they needed that it was possible?

She looked up. 'This doesn't sound so radical,' she pointed out.

'Well, they're hardly going to announce their intentions of taking over both wizarding and Muggle Britain in the best-read newspaper in the country, are they?' He was jumpy now, on edge. 'Can't you see what they're doing? Can't you see how clever this is? They get the public's good opinion on side acting like this and no one even realises it's them or that they even exist.' He shook his head. 'And they're everywhere. I think they even infiltrated the Ministry itself.'

'Is that why you've gone to me instead of Mr Potter?' she inquired sharply.

'Where should I have gone if not you?' he threw back at her. 'Most of the wizarding world, even if they aren't members, sympathises with the sentiment. People are tired of hiding and I am not even sure I can blame them. But to dominate Muggles? I don't think that's the way. But who's going to believe me, eh?' He sounded undeniably bitter.

As a result he found himself on the receiving end of a sympathetic and almost pitying smile. 'I'm sorry.' She bit her lip. 'You've got a point of course.' She shook her head in disgust. 'Forgive me for asking, but how do you know so much? According to you most of the wizarding world doesn't even know, so how do you?'

The wizard avoided her eyes when he replied. 'You know, don't you?'

'Merlin's beard,' the young witch whispered, which was all the answer that was needed. 'Lorcan, you didn't.' It was a plea for denial.

But if she was hoping she got it, she was sorely disappointed. 'You know I did.' All of a sudden he was rather defensive. 'And you can't really blame me for it, can you? You would have done the same if they'd have asked you. Aren't you tired of keeping our world separate from the Muggle one all the time? Aren't you ever tired of hiding?'

The ice was back in the woman's eyes, but it was laced with disappointment. 'Hiding is my job these days,' she reminded him.

He grimaced. 'I know. Listen, I am sorry. You know how it is for me these days. I can't even hold a decent job because of my background and they…'

'… Promised you the world,' the witch finished. It was more weariness that ruled her voice now than anything else. 'Believe me, I understand. But Merlin's pants, Lorcan, you're a Ravenclaw. Should you not have known better than to get involved with such a shady organisation?'

The man that was addressed as Lorcan arched an eyebrow at her. 'This is coming from the mouth of the Ravenclaw witch who abandoned the magical society to work for MI-5, the shadiest organisation in the British Muggle society?' He shook his head. 'I suppose that none of us are very wise when it comes to making decisions like that. It's just… Source of Light makes a valid point.'

The witch bit her lip, which could be taken as a sign that she at least agreed with that, even if she disagreed with all the rest. 'But this is not the way,' she said eventually. 'Dominating the Muggle world with magic? It sounds like Lord Voldemort all over again.'

Lorcan took that for the barely concealed accusation it was. 'Do you really think I would have accepted if I had known that? Surely you know me better than that!' he protested. 'I came straight to you the moment I realised what their real agenda was.'

She gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. 'I know. Do you at least have names?'

'Two only,' Lorcan replied. 'John Woods, the _Daily Prophet_ reporter. You know him?'

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. 'Heard of him. They say he's Rita Skeeter's successor in all but name, with his unsavoury taste for dragging important names through the mud.' She rolled her eyes at the wizard opposite her when he shot her an incredulous look. 'I'm not completely out of the loop, you know. He recruited you?'

Lorcan looked utterly ashamed.

'And the other?' she insisted. 'Who's the other?'

The other took a deep breath. 'Marcus Burke.'

She all but choked on her drink. 'Are you certain?'

'As certain as I can be,' he confirmed. 'Unless someone stole one of his hairs and drank Polyjuice Potion to steal his appearance, it was him. I've seen enough of him to know.'

The woman wrung her hands in clear distress. She bit her lip again, but eventually she took a deep breath to calm herself. 'I need to go to my boss with this,' she said. 'I can't keep this to myself and I'm not authorised to make decisions this important on my own.' She smiled apologetically. 'I'm sorry to ask, but can you stay with them for a little longer? At the moment you're our only way inside Source of Light. We may need you.'

Lorcan looked as if he had already expected a request like that. 'I suppose I could.' The lack of enthusiasm would have been audible even to a deaf man.

His lunch partner however pretended she had not noticed it. 'I'll deal with this right away,' she announced. 'I'll contact you when I know more.' She shoved her chair back and, after a last smile in his direction ended the _Muffliato_. 'It was good to see you again, John. We really ought to do this more often.'

Eliza McKenzie offered another smile to the nearest waiter and exited the restaurant at a brisk pace. If the number of people on the street would have allowed it and her boss wouldn't have torn into her for attraction attention in public, she would have run the distance to the nearest alley.

As it was, Eliza walked calmly, pretending to be just as interested in her mobile phone as the people she was surrounded by. The moment however she stepped foot inside the abandoned and dark alley, Amy Apparated straight back to Thames House.

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**I can't promise any regular updates for this story, but I'm aiming for at least updating once every two weeks, most likely on Thursdays. **

**Source of Light is placed in the timeline of Spooks, series 8, between 8x02 and 8x03, in case any of you were wondering.**

**Next time: Amy tells the happy news to her colleagues. Please review? It would mean a lot.**


	2. Ros Myers

**Chapter 2**

It was one of those days that she should have stayed in bed, Ros Myers pondered as she sent a scowl that was known to make terrorist suspects wet themselves with fear at the document she was currently reading. She had never been a very sociable person, but this morning was even below her already low standards, and she knew it.

The worst was that she had not even anyone to blame for the fiasco. The fault was all hers. Of course it didn't help that the one she met was the woman she had helped to force into exile a few years previous. It was Ruth's first official day back in Thames House, but working together with her might be hard, very hard. Of course Ruth had been back on the Grid once before, but that had been in the middle of an operation and at least then she'd had the excuse of an operation for not being overly sociable. That was an excuse she hadn't had today.

What did one say to the woman one had all but driven into exile herself? She had never even liked Ruth, not even before the whole Cotterdam affair, and she had been secretly relieved when Ruth was gone and she got to work with Connie James after a while. Now Ros wondered what it said about her that she rather had worked with a traitor than an honest woman.

This morning she had settled for a clipped 'Morning,' the kind of greeting that was reserved for most of her colleagues. Ruth was technically speaking her colleague now.

She'd thought she'd gotten away with it. That was, until Ruth wanted to "talk about it." To clear the air, she said. Ros had stared her down with her most iciest stare, told the analyst that she was busy and that Ruth herself surely had a lot to do before she was settled in again – which, in hindsight, must have come across as her having another jab at Ruth's forced exile – and that talking was not her top priority right now, after which she had stalked off.

At least, that must have been what it looked like to someone who was not Ros Myers. Her reputation of being an officially qualified sociopath usually preceded her into the room, so no one actually thought it strange that she acted in such a way. They would have been surprised to find that she had been almost crippled inside, overcome by panic at being confronted in such a way. And to others it may have looked like she was walking away after having given someone a scathing talking to, but to her it had felt like she fled the scene.

'Coffee, boss?' When Ros looked up to see who had spoken, she almost head-butted the extended coffee mug, that was currently held out to her by Lucas North, the Senior Case Officer on her team.

Ros glared at him. 'What part of _I do not want to be disturbed_ did you not understand?' she demanded.

If she was hoping he would do a step or two back, like Ruth Evershed had done, she was disappointed. Lucas had endured eight solid years of torture at the hands of the FSB, and had therefore seen a lot worse than Ros on a bad day. His experience with FSB interrogators seemed to have granted him permanent immunity from Ros's most foul glares and her harsh words. She reluctantly admired him for that, but it didn't mean that she liked it. On the other hand, it was a small price to pay for a colleague who did his work so well. He wasn't Adam – he didn't have the same temper for one – but he was one of the best officers she'd ever worked with and he had a knack for knowing when she was in need of coffee before she knew it herself.

'You look like you need it,' Lucas said, putting the mug on her desk when she didn't seem to be taking it from him. 'A sandwich probably wouldn't go amiss either.' The smile that accompanied his words was only just _this_ side of cheeky.

Ros threw in a glare for good measure, but it didn't have any more effect than it had before. At least she was lucky enough that Lucas had not been here when the whole disaster had taken place. He didn't know what had driven Ruth into exile and she was perfectly fine with keeping it that way. Not that there was much chance of that; Lucas was a spy like her and that meant that he would work it out eventually. Not yet, though.

Lucas merely looked around the Grid. 'Where are our magical additions?' he asked.

'Julius is liaising with Six and Amy should be at her desk,' she replied, sipping her coffee gratefully. Lucas's assessment of the situation had been right; she was in need of a caffeine fix.

It was still strange that Lucas had known about the wizarding world before she did. But then, he had been on the team during the nineties, during the Second Wizarding War, before he had been imprisoned in Russia. The way she'd heard Harry talk, he had even been actively involved in some of the action. He'd never taken on a Death Eater, but he had confirmed to smuggling Muggle-borns through the disused service tunnels under London, the very ones they'd used only recently to outrun the FSB and stop a nuclear device from wiping the city from the face of the earth.

The pods whooshed, letting a slightly panicked Amy onto the Grid. As far as Ros was aware, she hadn't even left, and she certainly had not been aware of her going off on her own – the witch was a desk spook, not a field officer after all – until Lucas had alerted her to it.

The look on the junior analyst's face was only too familiar though. It was the kind that every spy had when an asset had given them news they didn't want to hear. Only Amy didn't have assets to meet, not as far as Ros was aware.

She called after the young woman, but Amy either didn't hear her or she ignored her. Instead she made a beeline for Harry's office, which she entered, in true Section D style, without knocking. The only one startled by her exclamation was the new technician, Tariq Masood, who, to her annoyance, still hadn't lost the far too casual T-shirt, as she had instructed him to do. She expected she had frightened the young man with stares that left Lucas completely unaffected. He liked Lucas though, showing off gadgets and the like. Everyone seemed to like Lucas, whereas they usually gave her only a wide berth instead of a friendly smile. _You reap what you sow, Myers._

'What's that about?' Lucas wondered. In the time she had been trying to work out what the hell the new Mrs Burke was up to, he had taken the liberty of perching himself on her desk.

'I'm not magical, I can't tell.' Her temper was short and she really wasn't in the mood to play the guessing game. If it was important, Harry would call a meeting soon enough. 'Don't you have reports to finish or something?'

'It's lunch break,' he pointed out. 'Most of us use that the way it's meant to.'

Ros glanced at her watch. 'It was lunch break,' she corrected. 'Until five minutes ago.'

'Got it, boss.' This time the smile was the wrong side of cheeky. It was the kind that usually had every female swooning at his feet, but that Ros had complete immunity from. It was only fair; he wasn't affected by her laser looks.

Amy spent a lot of time in Harry's office, Ros observed, and whatever it was that she was telling him, it didn't improve Sir Harry's mood. The office was sound-proof, but Harry had forgotten to blind the windows, making sure Ros had a good view of the proceedings. Whatever it was that the magical analyst had ferreted out, it had their boss in a right foul mood.

She forced herself not to feel annoyed at being kept out of the loop and concentrated on her own job of digging through a stack of reports that seemed to refuse to shrink, to her endless annoyance. Julius came in and added a few to the pile, scanning the Grid for sight of his wife. 'Where's Amy?' he asked.

'Brightening Harry's mood,' Ros replied sarcastically.

Julius's head was still in the process of turning around to confirm this with his own eyes, when an almost deafening roar of Harry's commanded them all to gather in the meeting room 'right this instant!' Ros herself was just in time to see the Section Head marching over the Grid, a breathless Amy in his wake; she had to all but run to keep up with him. That was the best course of action; Harry Pearce in a mood like that was best not kept waiting.

This opinion was clearly shared by Ruth and Tariq, with the latter nearly throwing himself out of his chair and tripping over his feet in his haste to get into the meeting room. According to Lucas he was fond of his job and wanted to keep it, but that bloody T-shirt was so far not improving his career prospects. Jo was on her way as well, whereas Julius merely frowned and shrugged, before he did the same. Lucas was the only one who didn't give the impression of haste.

'You're not taking a stroll in the park on a sunny afternoon, Lucas,' she snapped irritably at him.

'Do we ever have sunny afternoons in England?' he wondered. 'With the hours we're working, I can never tell.'

Ros didn't deem this worthy of a verbal reply and merely rolled her eyes at him. Anyway, if he wanted to be on the receiving end of one of Harry's best tongue-lashings, that was his problem, not hers. Her mind was far more occupied with the panic she had seen on Amy's face on arrival and the naked fury on Harry's when he exited his office. Lucas may be right about Harry selecting his frown with his tie in the morning, but this frown was definitely selected later than the tie and Amy's report had something to do with it. It was one of those frowns that indicated that his blood pressure was in the danger zone. As far as Ros was aware, only terrorist attacks, the CIA and occasionally the Home Secretary had that effect on her boss.

Harry was tapping a pen impatiently against the table top when Lucas and she took their places at the table. Amy was the one who remained standing. She had come quite a long way since she had first stepped foot on the Grid – she was a lot more confident to begin with – but half an hour in Harry's office had reverted her into the young recruit wringing her hands. Not a good sign.

'Amy,' Harry said. 'If you please.'

The witch nodded and took a deep breath. 'This morning there was a note on my desk,' she began. 'It came from an old school friend of mine, who knows I'm working with MI-5 these days. He requested to meet me for lunch under false names.' She took a deep breath. 'He told me there's a secret movement in the magical society, called Source of Light.' Her breathing was shallow and she swallowed.

'I take it its aim is not to make sure the Ministry of Magic is properly illuminated,' Ros remarked dryly.

Amy shook her head. 'It's not,' she agreed. 'Its goal is to repeal the Statute of Secrecy.'

Ros didn't know why she was surprised this elicited a reaction from Ruth, but she was. 'I've heard of this!'

'Little birds told you that while you were in Cyprus, did they?' she inquired.

Harry's stern look told her she was going too hard on Ruth, but both women ignored him. 'I subscribed to the magical newspaper. I may have tricked their Ministry into thinking I was a Squib to do it.' She smiled, almost apologetically. 'But it's a popular sentiment in wizarding society worldwide. There are no more witch hunts and people are tired of hiding. It might even be a good idea.'

Amy jumped on it. 'Not the way Source of Light is planning,' she said dismissively. 'Their plan is to make sure as many Muggles see them doing magic as possible, so that their number is too great for the Ministry to Obliviate them. That way they hope to force the Ministry's hand. Their reasoning is that they will have to come out of hiding if only enough people know.'

'And little videos of magic are online faster than you can say "tweet" these days,' Lucas observed. 'If they play it clever, they could reach millions in a matter of hours. Bloody internet.' It ended in an angry mutter.

'Exactly,' Amy said.

Julius frowned. 'I agree with Ruth. Source of Light may go about it the wrong way, but there is some sense in the idea itself, isn't there? It would be easier on both societies if the Statute was repealed. Muggles wouldn't need to be Obliviated and wizards wouldn't need to hide anymore. Everyone benefits.'

This earned him another stare from Harry. 'It is not your job to bring change to the country,' he reminded the wizard.

'It's not as if the government is doing a very good job of it,' Julius drawled. He may be a bit more humble than he had been these days, but that arrogant streak was still there. In the three years he had been here, his opinion of the non-magical government hadn't improved either. Not that Ros could blame him for that.

'That is not what this about!' Amy interrupted, which was possibly a good thing; Harry's facial expression indicated an approaching hurricane. She sounded frustrated. 'Repealing the Statute is only the start of it all. They need it repealed for their ultimate goal to be successful.'

Ros frowned. 'Which is?'

'To take over the Muggle government and establish magical supremacy all over Britain.'

That particular revelation made almost every jaw in the meeting room drop. Ros could only hold on to hers at the last possible moment. She was in no way unfamiliar with loonies trying to overthrow government and society as she knew it – she had been part of such an attempt once herself – and that it were the magical loonies who sometimes attempted the same thing was old news to her; the Death Eaters had been trying to do the same thing during Operation Wandless. It was however most unwelcome news and it came completely out of the blue. And Ros didn't like surprises any more than she liked the CIA, which was to say: not at all.

Amy used the opportunity to keep going uninterrupted. 'They'd try to use Muggle ways at first, trying to get into Parliament and the like, but if that doesn't work…'

'They'd resort to more violent means?' Jo supplied, looking rather horrified.

Amy nodded miserably. 'Almost certainly so. My friend was convinced of it, at least, and he isn't likely to exaggerate.'

'Does this friend of yours have a name?' Ros inquired sharply. 'And how exactly did he get his hands on sensitive information like that? He been visited by little birds as well?'

'His name is Lorcan Rowle,' Amy said, sounding a bit more comfortable now, despite the fact that she had just been snapped at. 'He's a security guard in the Ministry of Magic.' Ros's memory conjured up the image of a scrawny youth just out of his teens, who had been delaying her a lot the one time she had stepped foot in the place, three years previous. He hadn't liked her much, but Ros couldn't care; the feeling was entirely mutual. 'One of the members of Source of Light recruited him. Apparently he only told Lorcan about the intentions to overthrow the Statute. When he found out there was a lot more to it than that, he came running straight to us.'

It was the same old story as always then, Ros observed. She wouldn't deny that such persons were usually the most valuable assets, but she also knew that people who got scared once, easily got scared again and then completely went to pieces when things got risky. The wizard she had met briefly then didn't look like a very brave fellow, but if he had access to Source of Light, then he wasn't out of this just yet. She had little consideration for people who went and got themselves involved in something criminal, and then tried to get out when they "realised they had made a mistake."

And she had national security to think of. 'Well, hopefully he hasn't bleated his resignation to the world just yet,' she remarked. 'Can you contact him and tell him he is in the employment of the Service as of now?'

'I already told him that.' This was a surprise. Amy was usually rather soft-hearted, and objected to using people like this on a regular basis. She thought it too harsh, too unfeeling, so when it was an old friend of hers that was on the receiving end of the Service's treatment, she was bound to protest. Now she presented a more grown-up attitude than Ros had given her credit for. 'But he expected that anyway.' She bit her lip. 'I really don't think he meant for any of this to actually happen.'

'Yeah, I'm sure Bin Laden didn't mean for those planes to happen either,' she commented sarcastically. 'Do we have names?' she demanded. 'Anyone we can suspect of being involved with Source of Light at all?'

She didn't get the answer she was hoping for. 'It doesn't make sense.' That was Lucas. 'They have a Ministry, Aurors, to deal with this sort of stuff. Why come to us?'

Inwardly Ros cursed herself for a fool. That was exactly the kind of question she should have been asking, but also the only one she hadn't asked. She really wasn't on top of her game today and if there was anything she disliked the feeling of, it was that.

Amy had her answer ready. 'Because he believes the Ministry has been infiltrated, as it was during the last war. The thing is, he knows it's big, but he doesn't know how big. All we have are the names of man who recruited him and someone he suspects of being a bit higher in the whole organisation.' Seeing that her boss was thoroughly fed up with her withholding the information that she wanted, she continued: 'Right… ehm… The man who recruited Lorcan is called John Woods, forty-two years old, lives in London and…'

'Works as a reporter for the _Daily Prophet_.' To Ros's surprise it was Harry who finished the sentence. In hindsight it was not such a surprise; Harry must be the only person in Thames House who even still read that bloody newspaper. 'He has been writing some charming pieces on why the Statute of Secrecy should be abandoned forthwith.' Going by the way he spoke the word _charming_, Ros could tell he wasn't charmed in the slightest.

'He's unofficially known as Rita Skeeter's successor,' Amy admitted, which earned her a few faces wrinkling in disgust. 'We don't know how deeply involved he is. He could just be the one writing the propaganda.' She took a deep breath. 'It's the other name that's the probably big fish in the pond.' For some reason she shot an almost apologetic look at Julius, something that Ros didn't quite get.

'Would you care to elaborate before Christmas, or are you going to spell out the name in magical letters floating over Whitehall?' she snapped. She really had no patience for dawdling. Something about this made her skin crawl. She had never liked wizard terrorists, probably because she couldn't really fight them on an equal basis, and them wanting to overthrow British society was somewhat disturbing, especially since they would probably use magic to do it.

A moment later Amy's awkwardness became a lot more logical though. 'His name is Marcus Burke.'

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**Next time: Julius processes the news. That next time will be in January, though, since I am taking a short holiday from writing/updating for the Christmas holidays. The full message is on my profile. Don't worry, I'll be back.**

**Please review?**


	3. Julius Burke

**Chapter 3**

'His name is Marcus Burke.' The words rang in his ears, but they refused to make any sense to Julius for a few more seconds. The name just kept echoing in his mind. Marcus Burke. He knew who that was. Of course he knew who that was. Not that he was much in touch with the man these days, mind, but he believed that he could be relied upon to remember the name of his own father.

And so could his colleagues. Maybe they didn't know that this was his father they were talking about yet, but the surname was a dead giveaway that this was a relative of his. The magical Burkes weren't all that big a family anymore. Like so many other pure-blood families, they would probably die out in the next century. There were only so many Burkes to choose from.

The one thing that stood out in the silence, was Amy's face. She was biting her lip again, something she tended to do whenever she was nervous or apologetic. She had been trying to speak to him before the meeting, but Julius had pointed out that Harry Pearce was a man best not kept waiting. They should talk later. It was only now that he realised that she may have been trying to warn him. It was him who had chosen not to listen.

He was paying the price for that now. Amy wouldn't want to publically humiliate him, or rub salt in still open wounds, and Merlin knew she had tried to put it off as long as she could. But both Harry and Ros had looked like they were prepared to rip out her throat if she didn't answer the question right this very minute.

But it didn't make sense either. His father hated Muggles, true, but he had never given off signs that he wanted to dominate them like Lord Voldemort had wanted to do. He didn't want anything to do with them. If the choice was up to him, he would board the doors and windows and pretend there were no Muggles and Muggle-borns. That was how he would deal with it. He wouldn't get involved with an organisation that actively strived to overthrow the Muggle society.

Or would he? Julius had to admit that he didn't know his father all that well anymore. It had started when he had attended Hogwarts, since he was seldom home. After Hogwarts, when he had started Auror training, it had been easier to get a place of his own in London, but he still had made frequent visits. Everything had seemed normal enough. It was only after he had taken that drastic step to work with MI-5 that all hell had broken loose. Since then, there hadn't been much contact at all.

The plausibility of the idea was starting to take root in his mind and Julius didn't want it to. He shoved his chair back and stood, toppling the piece of furniture in the process. He felt like a monkey that was ogled at in a zoo, and he couldn't stand it. He didn't want pity, or sympathy, or accusing looks, or…

He didn't know what he wanted. All he knew was that he wanted to get away from the stares as quickly as he possibly could. It was painful, and he didn't want to feel like the poor sod with the unreliable father. Even more so, he didn't want to be seen as unreliable himself, as compromised because of the things they suspected his father to be doing. Because, against all odds, was there not a possibility that Lorcan had gotten it wrong, that it was someone who only looked like his father, or who had stolen his appearance with Polyjuice Potion? Unlike in the Muggle world, wizards had many ways to change their appearance and still look completely normal. And they only had Lorcan's word for it. It was not as if the Ravenclaw had really been all that reliable. Far too nonchalant, in Julius's opinion, far too uncaring about the details…

'Julius?'

Amy's voice was the thing that snapped him out of his thoughts. She was the very image of apologetic, and just this once, Julius couldn't bear it. He didn't blame her for not telling him before the meeting, but he found that part of him blamed her for believing right away that his father really was doing what Lorcan said. And that was something he could not accept, not without irrefutable evidence. Family was family after all.

'Do you think he's a dangerous magical terrorist as well?' he drawled, trying to sound bored with it all. Never had it been more of a mask than it was now. 'It won't matter; they're all thinking it. Maybe you should move out of the flat for a while, until they've established that I don't want to become the next Muggle Prime Minister.' He was cursing his own carelessness in admitting that he wouldn't mind seeing the Stature of Secrecy flushed down the toilet. Only Merlin knew what they'd make of that.

'No one's thinking that!' Amy exclaimed. 'We all know what side you're on. You proved that three years ago.'

There was a short silence when they both remembered just how he had been forced to prove his loyalty before people believed him. It was not the kind of thing he wanted to remember, and therefore the very thing he found himself incapable of forgetting. There were nights that he still woke up screaming, bathing in his own sweat, heart beating so loud and rapid that it was bound to be unhealthy. And no one really understood. No one really grasped the consequences of what he had been through. They all assumed that, after a few weeks and a few visits to the shrinks, he was back on his feet and could continue with his work. That, admittedly, was true. And he had wanted to go back to work, because sitting in the flat was driving him up the walls. But that did not mean that all was well, and it certainly did not mean that his ordeal was forgotten.

Maybe that was the reason why he could get along so well with Lucas North. The Senior Case Officer had endured torture for much longer than Julius, but he understood, which was a relief, even if he would never admit that when called on it. And it helped that Lucas had experience with wizards and was not positively staring at him, like Tariq had done on his first couple of days. It had hardly been flattering and Julius had felt uneasy for days after.

Amy bit her lip as she realised she had dragged up very unwelcome memories. 'Well, I didn't mean…' She trailed off, and, after another short silence, began anew. 'Anyway, nobody here is thinking that you're running errands for Source of Light during your lunch break.'

'No, but you do think my father is.' Julius could not exactly define what it was about Amy's attitude that was vexing him now. They hadn't quarrelled in months and it seemed foolish to do it now, over something that should be purely about work. Maybe it vexed him because Amy was demonstrating the most professional attitude at the moment. It was him who was in denial about the mere possibility that his father could be involved in this mess.

'We don't know that,' Amy pointed out. 'Mr Pearce said as much.' Usually she called their boss Harry these days. Mr Pearce was something they'd called him when he wasn't really their boss yet and they didn't want to mix him up with Harry Potter. That she was doing this now, was a dead giveaway that she was ill at ease. 'Lorcan himself said that there could be Polyjuice Potion involved.' She grimaced. 'And Lucas said that we don't even know how reliable Lorcan is. He could just be playing us.'

'You don't believe that,' Julius pointed out. Lorcan had been fond of Amy since she had started her first year at Hogwarts. Little Miss Hamilton, he used to call her, and it had been meant as endearment rather than insult. She had a soft spot for the wizard in return. She saw him as a big brother of some kind.

Amy smiled ruefully. 'I don't,' she agreed. 'But we have to be open to the possibility that he is. He is still unproven as an asset, so naturally we'll have to be careful.'

The slightest suggestion on her part that he was not being that professional made him want to scream and hex people into oblivion, even more so because he knew that he was being very unprofessional at the moment. He also knew that he was emotionally compromised in this. And he hated it. Years ago he might have laughed at the very notion of him valuing the opinion of mere Muggles, never mind that he would have worked for and with them, but these people had become his colleagues and he was not the same man who had first joined Section D as a punishment for exactly the crime he was now guilty of: unprofessional behaviour. It seemed ironic somehow.

'Are you telling me that I should just accept that my father is a terrorist?' He couldn't help snapping. It seemed unfair, all of it. Would he now have to prove his loyalty all over again? Would he now have to stand up and admit that yes, he knew his father was a criminal, which of course surprised no one, since he had been so bloody unreasonable about Julius's transfer and marriage?

Amy had opened her mouth to answer that, but Harry Pearce stopped her from making good on that intention. 'Julius! My office, _now_!'

In a way it was almost a relief to get away from Amy. He loved her, he really did, and they worked well together, but he couldn't stand the sympathy he read in her eyes. It was just too much. And maybe he was just very ill-equipped to deal with things like pity. He wasn't used to it. People were far more likely to treat him with a level of wariness. That was something he had gotten used to at Hogwarts; the looks that silently wondered if he wasn't a Death Eater after all. He felt he was in immediate danger of being regarded in that same way again. Was that not why Harry commanded him to come to his office?

Amy smiled ruefully. 'You know, when we came here first, Malcolm told me his bark's worse than his bite. It's true.'

For a brief moment Julius wondered how Amy – dutiful and rule-abiding Amy – had ever gotten herself on the wrong side of Harry Pearce, but this was not the time, and to be quite honest, he had too many other things on his mind. He just managed a curt nod and got up. If Harry was going to decommission him, he might as well get the whole sorry business over with. Sometimes, he reflected, the bark was worse than the bite, a lot worse.

He entered, giving a half-hearted knock on the door before he did so. Usually he never bothered; no one did. It annoyed the Section Head to death, but it was so unusual to knock that people only did it when something was terribly wrong. Come to think of it, things were terribly wrong. And Julius had no ambition to send Harry's mood even further towards explosive.

'What is wrong?' Harry asked wearily when he heard the knock.

Julius didn't deem that worthy of a verbal reply. 'Why am I here?' He could guess, but he feared his decommission would be made real the moment he spoke the words. Irrational of him, maybe, but that was how he felt and he wasn't going to put his career on the line voluntarily. Hard as it may be for some of his old acquaintances to believe, he liked to work here.

'Sit down,' Harry said. It didn't do anything to calm the nerves that were threatening to boil over already.

'I'd rather not,' he said before he thought it through. He could handle this, he told himself. He wasn't a woman that he needed to sit when bad news was delivered to him.

Harry's stare told him that this was one of these things bearing the label of non-negotiable, and after a repeat of the command, Julius did as he was told.

'Why am I here?'

He had never been particularly gifted in the art of diplomacy, and the nerves made him worse. He just wanted this over and done with. Here and now. And Harry would be right to think him a security risk. He was the one who had said quite plainly that the Statute of Secrecy should be abandoned and who had a father who was striving to achieve just that. Harry would be a fool to want to keep him.

'Source of Light,' was the predictable answer. 'I want to know that you can handle it.'

That was not what Julius had been suspecting and for a minute his boss's words caught him by surprise and knocked him off balance. In his head he had been practising suitable replies, pleas – although he would never refer to them as pleas when called on it – to make Harry let him stay.

'Handle it?' In his state of not-quite-understanding he stupidly parroted the last two words as a question. Well, not stupidly, not quite. It was one of Amy's tactics, to do that, because people could interpret it whichever way they wanted and you could always say that you had meant it in another way. One of her better ideas, to be sure.

There was no misunderstanding with Harry though. 'I don't want you to be emotionally compromised in this.'

'I won't be,' Julius vowed.

It was slowly dawning on him that he was clearly not in immediate danger of being decommissioned, and he wasn't planning on entering the danger zone in the foreseeable future. If that meant throwing himself at the operation with all that he had, then so be it. It wasn't as if he had the back-up option of the Auror Department after this, not if his father was truly involved in all this mess. Guilty by association was something the Ministry of Magic appeared to be rather fond of. They may not always throw such persons in prison, but they didn't go offering them good jobs either. Lorcan Rowle was the living and breathing example of that.

He pretended to be bored with it all, something his boss probably wouldn't buy, as he added: 'Why would I be?'

'Julius, your father is one of the main suspects…' Harry began. Julius loathed the sympathy he heard in the older man's voice.

The wizard interrupted. 'With all due respect, until we have verified that the man Lorcan saw was indeed Marcus Burke and not someone who stole his appearance with Polyjuice Potion, we do not know that it is him. And even if it is, we have fallen out. It won't be a problem.' And if he told himself that enough, he might even start to believe it.

Clearly this was the answer the Section Head had hoped for, because he gave a satisfied nod. 'Good. Because you are going to pay him a visit tomorrow and plant some bugs with bloody good sound reception while you're there. Ask Tariq for one of his magic resistant bugs, and go there tomorrow.'

Whatever it was that he had expected, this was not it. Tariq's magic-proof listening devices were the very least of his worries. He knew Amy and the new techie had been working on something like that, but he hadn't known they had already succeeded. He shouldn't have been surprised; between Tariq's enthusiasm for the project and Amy's outstanding spellwork it was a small wonder they had worked out something already.

But that was not what had him frowning. 'And how had you imagined that?' he drawled. '"Hi, dad, long time no see. Oh, and by the way, my boss wants to know whether or not you're caught up in this whole criminal Source of Light business?" He loathes me these days. He won't welcome me.' He was more likely to slam the door in his face. 'And if I visit because of work, he'll know we're onto him.'

'You are a spy, Julius. You'll think of something,' Harry shot back.

He probably would think of something. He was resourceful enough, and Harry knew that as well. Truth be told, his boss demonstrated a lot of trust in him by letting him deal with his father. He must have considered that Julius could be emotionally compromised, very easily so, and yet he sent him in all the same. Clearly he didn't think Julius was about to turn traitor anytime soon.

Under any other circumstances Julius might have felt ready to grab a Butterbeer to celebrate the fact, but not today. Now, when he walked out of the office, he only felt more burdened than when he had gone in.

* * *

**Next time: a walk-in in Thames House. Please review?**


	4. Lucas North

**Chapter 4**

Lucas North could safely say that he could deal with most strange situations thrown at him. He had known about the existence of wizards for well over a decade, had dealt with eight years of torture and some betrayal. Source of Light shouldn't be so much different. At the very least it shouldn't be as shocking as it was.

But it was. Not the organisation itself, though; wizards were hardly the inventors of coups, conspiracies and terrorism. It was finding out just how wide-spread the movement was that left him in immediate danger of going slack-jawed. The moment Amy had concluded her report on what she knew, Ros had taken over. If she was shocked, then she hid it well. But then, Lucas wondered if Ros Myers even knew what the word shock meant. She seemed wholly incapable of it, as well as several other emotions widely known to the rest of mankind. At times he wondered what Adam Carter had seen in her. True, she had a good sense of humour, and was utterly devoted to the job, not very unlike Lucas himself, and she was a good colleague, but she could also be very rude and unfeeling.

She had sent Ruth and Jo to see what they could ferret out about their two current suspects and had burdened Amy and Lucas with the terrible job of re-reading months' worth of _Daily Prophets_ to see if anything could be learned from that. Not for the first time that day Lucas cursed the fact that Harry kept them for months on end before throwing them away. And wizards didn't have internet, which meant they had to scan every bloody thing manually. And wizarding papers had not yet entered the twenty-first century; they were large and took up most of his desk.

They were to find any articles relating to the abolishing of the Stature of Secrecy and the people writing it, and then pass the names on to Ruth, so that she could try and find out who they were. They had been at it since about three pm last afternoon until they were finally allowed to go home, eat and get some sleep. Then they had been going from the moment they stepped foot on the Grid this morning. It was just about time for lunch break, but Amy hadn't mentioned any lunch and Lucas didn't feel a burning need to inquire whether or not they could take a break, even though his eyes were stinging from trying to make sense of all the newspaper articles he had seen today.

The magical analyst had positively thrown herself at the task. It looked like she was actually taking it personally. Could be that she was; it was her father-in-law that was stirring up trouble and an old school friend of hers who had gotten involved somehow.

Nevertheless he was glad when Ruth walked over to their now combined workstations, carrying files. 'Lucas, Amy, do you have a moment?'

He was about to thank her for a timely interruption, but thought better of it. Instead he settled for a neutral, but meant 'Sure.'

Amy took herself over to his desk, latest newspaper still in her hands, seemingly completely unaware of the fact that her fingers were stained with the ink. She was clearly too focused on her work to pay attention to much else. 'Have you found anything?'

'Bits and pieces,' Ruth answered vaguely. 'Nothing I've got any evidence for anyway. But John Woods has gotten himself a phone, quite recently. I… ehm… I called in a favour from an old contact at GCHQ and got him to give me his phone records.' She put a sheaf of papers on the desk in front of them.

Lucas gave the top one a quick once over before he took a peek at the other ones. Even without Ruth spelling it out for him, it was rather obvious that Woods's phone had been used to call only four phones. All four had been called at least every two or three days. There was never longer between a phone call to a certain number than that.

'He makes the calls,' he observed. 'They don't call him.' Classic terrorist behaviour, he couldn't help but think. This was the commander communicating with the foot soldiers. They were only there to await orders. They didn't initiate action themselves, they waited until they were told to act.

'So, what are these calls for?' Amy asked, wringing her hands now that she had put the newspaper away and was consequently spreading the ink all over the skin that until then had been clean.

Ruth shook her head to signal that she didn't know, something that probably frustrated her. Lucas hadn't known her for all that long, but he had heard stories, mainly from Jo – Ros had turned into a stubborn oyster when he had brought the subject up for some reason – about her work before she left. What he had heard was that she was very thorough, and didn't rest until she had gathered every last piece of information that could be found. 'I'm working on that.'

'Calling in more favours from former lovers?' he teased. Ruth's cheeks flushed bright red. 'Do we have an ID on the owners of the other phones?'

Ruth smirked triumphantly. There really was no other description that would do that expression on her face justice. 'Three of them,' she confirmed. 'They were stupid enough to register under their own names. This one,' she pointed at the number at the top of the page, 'belongs to one Oliver Fawley, pure-blood, born in Mould-on-the-Wold in 1987, currently working for Magical Maintenance in the Ministry of Magic.'

'He wrote a letter to the _Prophet_ three weeks ago to say he agreed with an article about the abolishing of the Statute,' Amy recalled.

Ruth nodded. 'And the article was written by one Philip Kelly, editor for the Daily Prophet, and owner of the second phone. He's a Muggle-born.'

'There are Muggle-born in on the plot?' Amy almost seemed surprised. 'I thought he was half-blood?'

'His step-father is a wizard,' Ruth explained. 'Real father left before Philip was born, and Harold Kelly all but adopted the boy. Gave him his surname and all.'

Lucas frowned. 'How do you know then?'

Another smile. 'I found his birth certificate.'

It would seem that Jo had not exactly been exaggerating when she had praised Ruth to the skies within his hearing. Clearly her praise had been more an understatement than anything else. She really was good. 'And the third phone?'

'Owned by Darren Blake, half-blood, seventeen years old,' Ruth reported.

'Shouldn't he be at school this time of year?' Lucas asked. He remembered hearing once that technology didn't work at Hogwarts and besides, the lad couldn't really do anything useful for the cause if he was stuck at school all day.

'Home-schooled by his mother apparently,' Ruth answered. 'It's allowed,' she added when she saw his questioning glance.

Lucas took her word for it. He may know something about wizards, but he was far from all knowing on the subject. True, he had played some part in the Second Wizarding War, but that had not yielded too many valuable insights in normal non-war magical society. Apparently they had their own magical recruits – and Ruth – for that sort of thing. He had to admit to being impressed by what she had managed to discover, and in such a short period of time too.

'Do we know anything about the owner of the last phone?' He remembered her saying that they knew three names, but there were four phones.

Ruth grimaced. 'Pay as you go,' she answered. 'Tariq's trying to track it down, but it's not working so far.'

'Too much magic around it?' Amy suggested. 'Magic does sometimes corrupt the signal.'

'Possible,' Rut admitted.

Either way it would be driving Tariq nuts. The techie was still new to this job, and he was clearly of the belief that technology should be able to do anything he wanted it to do. Maybe that was why Amy and he had been working on something that made it possible for technology to still function when magic was in the area. That trick had just not been performed on the last phone, making it impossible to locate the thing.

'Keep at it,' he ordered her. Normally that was Ros's job, but there was something between the Section Chief and the senior intelligence analyst that made them keep their distance from one another, for whatever reason. Ros wouldn't mind him telling Ruth to do what no doubt was the best option anyway, would she? Although with Ros there was really no telling what she did and didn't approve of.

Ruth returned to her desk and Lucas resigned himself to more newspaper articles. Oh, bugger it all, he was going to get a bite first. 'Sandwich?' he asked Amy.

She nodded. 'Sure. Do you… ehm… do you mind getting them?' Her eyes wandered back to the newspaper she had spread out on the desk in front of her. 'Only, I thought I'd keep going for a bit longer.'

It was rather predictable, but then, that was why he had offered. 'No problem,' he said, and he made to turn and leave the Grid, when his phone started to ring. Probably Harry fetching him to his office for a progress report, since there were no other pressing cases at the moment. 'Lucas North, Section D.'

To his surprise it was not Harry, not even Ros, who had called him. instead he found himself listening to one of the security guards downstairs announcing that there was a walk-in that needed dealing with, as soon as possible too. Lucas inwardly groaned as he listened to the description helpfully provided to him by aforementioned guard. Old lady, over sixty years of age, probably older, wearing a hat and in the possession of a small dog that was currently in the process of sniffing the man's colleague's shoes.

Walk-ins were often a far too kind word for paranoid patriots. The worst thing was that they often really thought that their information was helpful, which it sometimes was, but not often when coming from the kind of person he had just been told was waiting downstairs. It had yet to dawn on some people that not every Asian man with a beard was a potential terrorist.

'I'm coming,' he said, only just managing to keep the groan that was threatening to escape his throat long enough until the conversation was at an end.

Amy sent him a scrutinising glance. 'Something wrong?'

'Walk-in.' That didn't count as wrong, strictly speaking, but it didn't sound like a relaxing lunch break either. 'The kind that's over sixty years old and has a pet dog the size of a rat.'

Amy visibly recoiled from the idea. 'Oh. Should I go down?'

Lucas shrugged. 'Might be just as well.' Strength in numbers and all that crap. And it was possibly best not to ask of Ros to go and deal with this. The Section Chief's well of patience had been running notoriously low the last few days, and much of it was probably thanks to the wizards and their troubles. Ros had never been known for her tolerance of all things magic. She tolerated it at the best of times, but Lucas suspected it was mostly because it made her nervous, like it had made his skin crawl when he had first found out about it and he had been told that there were curses that could kill him faster than he could say magic. He had seen a lot worse since, which was probably why he had lost most of his fear for the wand-waving weirdoes, as Ros tended to call them. No matter what nasty tricks wizards had up their sleeves, the FSB could doubtlessly do worse.

These days magic was mostly very interesting. He could get along well with Julius. They had been out in the field together a couple of times, and it had been pleasant working with him. Amy was difficult to connect with, not in the very least because she was rather shy and had her nose stuck heaps of paper and parchment the rest of the time. She tended to ramble a lot as well. But then, she was like that with most of her colleagues, so Lucas didn't pay it much mind.

The old woman who claimed she had some information had been guided to a small room where they could talk without being overheard. Unfortunately the dog had been allowed to go in with her, and it started to inspect Amy's shoes the moment they set foot over the threshold. With some amusement Lucas noted that his assumption of the dog being no bigger than a rat had not been all that far off the mark. _More like spot on_.

'Are you from MI-5?' the old woman – definitely over seventy years old – asked, clearly in a state of panic. Lucas had to admit that he may need to change his opinion, even if only a little. The woman was clearly terrified, and people generally didn't get terrified for no reason. Of course it could still be overreaction. It wouldn't be the first time he was confronted with people who got themselves worked up for no good reason at all. But he wouldn't know until she had told her story.

'We are.' Amy was the one to reply. 'Why don't we all sit down and you can tell us what happened?' The dog had started to lick her shoes, and she tried to get out of the way of the animal's tongue.

'At least it isn't peeing on them,' he whispered at her when they took their seats with a glance at the dog.

Amy grimaced. 'Thank Merlin.'

Lucas grinned, but schooled his face back into an expression of polite interest when he faced the woman again, working his way through all the necessary protocols before he could let the walk-in – Elizabeth Small, seventy-three years old – tell her story.

She was wringing her hands in a very Amy-like manner. 'I really don't know where to start,' she said. 'It was all so strange.' The niceties seemed to have taken the edge of the panic though, something Lucas was all too grateful for.

He conjured up his most reassuring smile. 'Why don't you start at the beginning?' he suggested. On second thought, ploughing through months of newspapers wasn't that bad a way to spend his lunch break.

'I was walking my dog,' Mrs Small narrated. 'He does love long walks, although he isn't as young as he used to be, so I do have to carry him from time to time. But it's no real trouble, you see, because…'

'Where were you walking your dog?' Amy asked patiently. When she put her mind to it, she really had a way with people. Lucas himself didn't have any trouble with obtaining information either, usually, although Ros teasingly remarked that his ways were most effective when practised on females. She had glared at him when he inquired why on earth they failed to work on her if that was indeed the case.

'The Embankment,' the old lady answered. 'And there was this young man.' She took a deep breath to collect herself, which was needed; her hands were shaking, and Lucas could not for the life of him figure out why.

'Did he rob you, Mrs Small?' he asked patiently. Well, he mostly pretended to be patient, which wasn't quite the same thing.

'No, no, not at all,' she said quickly. 'He was really nice, you see. He came up to me and said that he had noticed that my coat had a tear and if perhaps I would permit him to mend it for me. Well, of course he didn't look like the kind of man who'd know a needle from a thread, so I asked him how he thought he would do that.'

Mrs Small was in full flow now, and didn't note at all that Lucas and Amy were exchanging glances. Lucas would never think of himself as being intuitive, but there was something rather fishy about this all. Or maybe he had been reading too many magical newspapers in the last twenty-four hours. Ros would probably tell him that was the case.

'It was very strange, Mr…' she went on.

'Nolan,' he supplied helpfully. 'John Thompson.'

'Well, it was all very strange, Mr Thompson.' Mrs Small was fidgeting with the handle of her handbag. 'He said, "why, with magic of course" and then the pointed a piece of wood at my coat and the tear was gone.'

_At which point you started panicking_. Lucas could fill in the blanks for himself. It was easy enough to imagine, even more so because he might be in some danger of panicking himself. Well, he wouldn't call it panic, not exactly. But given the fact that only yesterday they had learned of the existence of Source of Light, an organisation dedicated to showing magic to as many people as they possibly could, this story could hardly be dismissed as coincidence. And he didn't think it was just a hallucination of this old woman either. Most people surely would think of it as that, but most people didn't know about the existence of witches and wizards either, although Source of Light was clearly doing its best to change that very soon.

The silence had lasted too long. The panic on Mrs Small's face was replaced by what looked like righteous anger. 'I am not out of my mind, Mr Thompson,' she all but snapped, the very image of an indignant granny. Under any other circumstance it would have been amusing to see that she turned to him as the senior figure. It was probably for the best that she didn't know that Amy was an actual witch, one of the people that had sent her into a panic attack to begin with.

'I did not say that you were, Mrs Small,' Lucas said calmly. Of course he had no way of knowing if her coat really had been torn, but it was rather obvious that there was nothing wrong with it now. 'Could you perhaps describe this young man to us?'

That seemed to pacify her some. 'Certainly I can.' She seemed insulted at the suggestion – which Lucas hadn't been making – that she could not be relied upon to provide a physical description of the young man who had been found guilty of performing magic in the middle of a crowded city. 'He was young, between eighteen and twenty, I'd say. He had, yes, grey eyes, and brown hair. It was very curly, I remember that very clearly. And he had a birthmark on his left… no, right cheek, just under his eye, very distinctive. He wore very peculiar clothing, though.' She frowned, as if that was his worst fault.

'In what way were they peculiar, Mrs Small?' It was one of the first times since their walk-in had begun her story that Amy had spoken, and only now did Lucas note that she had paled considerably. Well, she would have, probably, given the circumstances. He wasn't about to jump to his feet and do a happy dance around the bloody room himself. And he'd bet that Harry wasn't going to do that either. All hell would break loose the moment the Section Head caught wind of this. Not to mention Ros.

'Why, it was almost as if he was wearing a dress,' Mrs Small said. 'Black, I believe.' She shook her head in almost disbelief. 'You see the strangest types these days.' If she had recovered enough to comment on the clothes of the wizard, although she of course didn't know he was one, then she wouldn't be in such a state as she had been before. Lucas was grateful for it. The last thing he needed was a hysterical woman when there were magic-performing wizards on the loose. He had hoped for a bit more time, but clearly time had run out. They would have to deal with this now.

Amy ignored Mrs Small in favour of turning to him. 'John, could I have a quick word with you outside?' The tone of voice suggested this was not a question he could say no to.

So he nodded and followed her out of her room, leaving Mrs Small to spend some quality time with her rat. Dog. Whatever. 'What's the matter?' he asked. _Apart from rule breaking wizards of course._

Amy took a deep breath. 'I think I know who she was talking about.'

* * *

**Next time: Harry Potter and Harry Pearce meet to discuss Source of Light. Please review? I'd really like to know what you think.**


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